


Gone

by NoSanctuary



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Hurt Daryl Dixon, I don't know I just love all of them and you can't make me choose, Implied Daryl Dixon/Beth Greene, Implied Daryl Dixon/Carol Peletier, Season/Series 05
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-06
Updated: 2017-01-06
Packaged: 2018-09-15 04:24:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9218975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoSanctuary/pseuds/NoSanctuary
Summary: In the moments after Grady, Daryl just can't let her go.





	

**Author's Note:**

> My thoughts on what happened after they left the Grady hospital, and before Tyreese's death, and on why Beth never got a funeral. One shot, canon compliant.

_"I'll be gone some day.”_

The words had cut through him at the time, though he’d gruffly murmured “Stop,” and tried to hide it. And while Daryl had accepted their truth the moment he’d heard them, he’d pushed them down and hidden them away, tried not to think about them as though that could prevent them from coming true.

_“I will.”_

Even in the weeks they’d been separated, when her words crossed his mind from time to time, he’d put them away each time because he’d truly believed what he’d said to Rick. She wasn’t dead—she was _just gone_. 

_“You're gonna miss me so bad when I'm gone Daryl Dixon.”_

But the flash of pain he’d felt when she’d spoken those words had only been a preview of the agony that consumed him now.

He could hardly think, hardly see. Hardly breathe. He knew her blood was leaking from the bullet’s exit wound in the back of her head onto his bicep where it rested, and he hardly registered it. He placed Maggie’s heart-rending scream, vaguely saw her crumple to the concrete, but it echoed around him like he was somewhere else—he was already in too much pain to feel any of anyone else’s. Maggie remained in a sobbing heap where she’d fallen, and didn’t move to try to take her sister, and this was a good thing, because Daryl wasn’t sure he could have let Beth go.

In fact, since he’d kneeled beside her lifeless body in the hallway, shoving Rick’s hands away when his friend had come to help him lift her, nobody had tried to touch him, or Beth. Daryl doubted anyone was doing it out of any sort of respect for him—she wasn’t even his family, for christ sakes, but then she _was_. He’d hardly spoken to them about losing her outside of the funeral home, let alone their time on the road together just the two of them. No one in his family could have realized just how much he'd lost back there in the hospital hallway—Daryl wasn’t even sure himself.

So, he stood at a rare loss for what came next, cradling this dead girl in his arms, every moment wondering if his knees would buckle and bring him down to the ground where he’d find himself unable to rise again, and every moment, he found he still stayed standing.

He remembered the last time he'd carried her like this; as she'd limped down the hallway of the funeral home, Daryl, both reveling in the thrill of the physical contact he'd grown more and more confident initiating every day and impatient for breakfast, had swept her up, one arm across her back and the other behind her knees, and carried her into the kitchen. She'd been light in his arms, the thrum of her squeal of surprise and her laughter carrying from her chest into his through her back where it rested against him. In his enthusiasm for the food and and his high at the level of contact he'd dared to engage in, he hadn't felt embarrassed about what he'd done until later, when Beth had teasingly referred to the maneuver as a bridal carry, causing his neck and cheeks to flush red.

Now, the only similarity was his hold on her. Her body was heavy and unstable, her head lolling nauseatingly if he didn't keep his arm steady where it rested, her weight easily sliding to one side or the other and unbalancing him if he wasn't careful, not so unlike the deer he'd brought home over the years, and this thought made him want to throw up even as he drove it away.

Vaguely, even as he heard Maggie’s cries quiet to even worse, formless little whimpers, he was also aware of Abraham letting loose an unholy stream of curses from inside of the fire truck wherethe man had climbed back to. The truck wouldn’t start.

And then they were starting to move—there would be room for their second group in the cars Rick’s group had taken to the city, they just had to get back to where they'd left them. Glenn was pulling Maggie to her feet, where she was hardly able to stay standing on her own, and beginning to drag her forward. Tyreese remained by Carol’s side, helping her limp along. Daryl? Daryl was alone. No one came to help him, and he hung back, rooted to this place, this place that would be the last place he’d ever seen her alive.

And he looked down into her face through eyes blurred by tears, and his own face, which he hadn’t managed to really pull together anyway, crumpled. It was some storybook bullshit, but all he could think was that she looked so peaceful, some stray blonde hair obscuring the small hole on her brow just below her hairline, her mouth gently closed. Like any moment now, she might just wake up.

“Daryl,” he heard, and he hardly noticed it, like the word was for someone else. Her eyelids were closed, for which he was grateful, but it was also another finger digging into a wound that he’d never see her shining, bright blue eyes again.

“Daryl,” Rick repeated more sharply, jerking him from his daze, and he looked up at his friend. “We’ve got to go,” Rick said urgently, and Daryl realized the man was probably repeating himself. Mutely, he nodded, and trailed behind their silent, stumbling group.

They didn’t make it far—maybe five or six blocks—before they ran into trouble. A herd, massive in size, spreading from one side of the street to the other and as far back as they could see. The front of their group spilling onto the street, both parties spotting each other simultaneously. Daryl could see Rick’s brief look of longing in the direction the groaning and shuffling noises were coming from—this was also the direction of their vehicles. The hungry moans growing in volume and frequency, becoming almost frantic, and there was no need for silence now, Rick’s shout of “Run!” warning the back of the group, still emerging from the alley, of what they were about to encounter. And they ran.

The main street they were on now was crowded with vehicles, which was both an advantage in that it slowed the less maneuverable walkers behind them, and a disadvantage in that they couldn’t see dangers lurking just behind the cars as they rushed between them.

This became apparent when Daryl, in the rear and hurtling around the opaque back of a cargo van, collided directly with a walker, whom had been drawn by the sounds of other members of his family sprinting by. His arms occupied with carrying Beth’s body, the walker grabbed at him, and he struggled backwards to try to get out of its grip. The possibility of dropping her never entered his mind, even as his several steps backward carried him towards the oncoming herd, which as slow moving as they were, was narrowing the gap dangerously.

When he grunted loudly with effort, "fucking prick!" bursting from him in a snarl of uncharacteristic desperation, Carol heard him and looked over her shoulder to discover the precarious situation that was unfolding. However, injured as she was, she couldn't make it to him quickly and could only shout for help.

Rick, at the front, whirled, but her cry had alerted the others too, and Abraham was closer, his strides more bounds then steps as he quickly closed the gap to plunge his hunting knife into the walker’s head, even as its teeth snapped together within inches of Daryl’s arm. Abraham exchanged a look with Rick, and even through the haze, Daryl could read the scorn in it as easily as if Abraham had said aloud that he thought this was ridiculous. Daryl risking his life for a body—Daryl risking all their lives for a body.

 

_“I want you to stop actin' like you don't give a crap about anything. Like nothing we went through matters. Like none of the people we lost meant anything to you! It's bullshit!”_

The frustration and fury were so clear in her voice as it played in his head that he flinched as if he’d been struck.

 _"I know you look at me and you just see another dead girl." N_ ow her voice was lower, but not any less firm, and he swallowed thickly. He couldn’t look into her face, the face he was cradling, anymore and he closed his eyes, but he couldn’t hide from her, or this, and suddenly he found himself back outside that trailer.

 _“No, you don't get it! Everyone we know is dead!”_ And it was his voice, him snarling those words, and he curled in on himself in horror.

 _“We don't_ know _that!”_ she’d cried back at him, and there had been a conviction in her voice then that had shamed him, made him feel a coward that she could believe when he couldn’t, and he felt it wash over him all over again.

Revulsion at what he knew came next rose in his throat like bile.

_“They might as well be 'cause you ain't never gonna see 'em again! Rick. You ain't never gonna see Maggie again!”_

He blinked back tears as he opened his eyes again and stared down into her cold face. He felt physically nauseous, sheer, immense disgust, _he was nothing but a fuckin’ redneck piece of shit_ , churning in his gut and making him want to claw out of his own skin. And he knew she’d forgiven him minutes after he’d spoken, but he couldn’t forgive himself, not then and not now. Not when, worst of all, he’d been right.

 

"Daryl!" Abraham barked, bringing him back to the present.

Daryl leapt forward, finding himself and Abraham now only feet ahead of the herd, and even as they opened the distance once again to several yards, there was trouble up ahead; a scattered group of walkers emerging from behind cars and several alleys, drawn by the sounds of the herd. Abraham raced back to the front, again looking to Rick, loudly grumbling something Daryl couldn’t hear but didn’t need to, before they began to fall the walkers. Daryl's thoughts didn’t linger on it, his body moving through the motions of survival mechanically—Rick wouldn’t ask him to leave her. He wouldn’t. Rick, who’d called him his brother that morning after the fight with the Claimers, who maybe couldn’t understand, but who maybe could, or who maybe didn’t need to. Daryl dodged and dodged again, the task of bringing down the walkers falling to the uninjured members of his group with free hands.

Glenn briefly moved to help clear the way, leaving Maggie to rest heavily against a car, before returning to guide her forward. Their group was seriously handicapped by the multiple members of their party who were unable to fight, whether they themselves were injured or they were assisting someone who was, and the few remaining, including Rosita and Sasha, staggered themselves throughout the group to take down walkers for those who couldn’t.

They ran and ran. Minutes passed as they tore down streets, and Daryl’s body felt like it was on fire, every muscle crying out for relief, and yet he pushed on like he felt nothing. They all did.

 

**_“_ ** _I wish I could just…change.”_

He heard her voice as clearly as the night they’d sat together on that trailer porch, her eyes shining from more than just the alcohol, and though he couldn’t have voiced why, he knew the reason that his blood began to simmer.

_“You did,”_ he’d said, and his lips moved now to form the words again.

_“Not enough. Not like you.”_

His fury boiled over, a result of his frustration and his confusion as the events from the hallway replayed in his mind and he couldn’t stop the same questions he’d already turned over countless times from forming again. Why had she stabbed Dawn with those scissors? He’d been with Beth weeks on the road, and she knew how to use a knife, just as she’d have known that her family would have her back, could have taken on the cops to protect Noah. Together. Why had she even walked back towards Dawn at all? Why hadn’t he stopped her? His hand on her back as she’d reached him, guiding her away, and then—he’d just let her go back. All stupid mistakes, one stupid mistake after another. Despite what people might have thought, despite what he himself had thought at one time, Beth was a fighter, a survivor, and she was strong—so why had she apparently thrown her life away?

 

Up ahead, the road was opening up, the city giving way to suburban sprawl in the distance. This should have filled the group with hope, maybe did. Daryl didn’t feel anything, briefly registered it, tacked it to his list in which he determined the best course that’d lead to staying alive.

Once more, though those at the front sought to clear the way for those behind them, there were undead stragglers who shambled forward, slowly enough to not be picked off initially but fast enough to catch those in the back, and Daryl, with a shout of rage, had to use his shoulder and his body to throw a walker into a car, its body crumpling temporarily to the ground as he continued on. The oncoming walkers were slowing them down, and the herd was closing again, and everyone in the group knew it. Once again, ahead of him, Daryl saw Abraham and Rick trade a look, which in hindsight should have sounded mental alarm bells but at the time did nothing, aside from cause a dim sense of guilt that he should have been there, too, fighting to protect the group, instead of following.

His arms were groaning under the strain of carrying her so far so quickly, but there was no time to try to shift her, to adjust.

_“You’re heavier than you look,”_ he heard himself saying in a place that felt so far away, remembering the weight of her on his back, his hands around her calves, her arms resting on his neck. So vibrant and alive. And then, there was here, with Beth’s body, limp and lifeless in his arms, like a weight he was dragging through water, pulling him back even as he desperately pushed forward, and the dead snapping at his heels.

In his moment of distraction, he never saw them coming until they’d grabbed hold of him—Rick on his right and Abraham on his left, each wrestling an arm, a shoulder, _and what the fuck were they doing_ , and he struggled against them, not even sure why, just as he didn’t understand why they were holding onto him, even as he began to. And as Tyreese moved towards him, the growing dread that sat in his belly like a stone rapidly gave way to a furious rage as he did understand, and there was nothing he could do about it. Tyreese took her from his arms, even as Rick and Abraham overpowered him, twisted him until he let go, and held him back. Grunting and gasping, he struggled futilely in their grip, but was otherwise silent, his attention fixated on Beth (and by extension, Tyreese) as she was moved farther and farther from him.

“We’ve got to leave her,” Rick said, trying to be gentle though there was something unyielding in his voice too, “or we won’t make it.” Daryl wouldn’t make it, he was saying, and others might not either, in trying to save him.

Daryl wasn’t looking at Rick as his friend spoke though, he was watching as Tyreese, fifteen feet away, lowered Beth into the trunk of a car, and closed the lid, and this complete loss of a visual connection with her, perhaps the realization that with the thunk of that door she was truly gone forever, ripped through him in a way the loss of a physical one hadn’t been able to. Dimly, he registered Maggie wailing.

No, was the only word Daryl could summon to his mouth, form with his tongue and teeth, but the word tore from his throat over and over, his voice pitching from something desperate and small and gravelly to a bone-shaking roar, clawing its way out from behind his lips, unstoppable as a freight train, and the force of his reaction briefly knocked Rick back.

“For christ-sakes man, she’s dead, we’ve got to leave her!” Abraham bellowed with far less tact, unwilling to stand by as the group made yet another illogical, emotional decision, and determined to avoid that by bulling onward.

The words were unheard by their target. Daryl lunged forward, colliding with Tyreese as the man sprinted towards him, but even then it was too late, the walkers reaching the car, staggering past it, a relief Daryl could hardly note in his desperation to get her back. Tyreese briefly brought a hand to Daryl’s shoulder, which the archer shrugged off, and then the bigger man was rushing back to Carol’s side.

Daryl knew there was no way backward, no way to retrieve her, and yet he was rooted to the spot, unable to take a single step away from her, even as the walkers neared him.

Beth, who'd pulled him back from the edge of the abyss he'd been teetering on after the prison, who was young and beautiful but it wasn't _that_ but that she was _good_ and that she carried that goodness like a light inside of her, and he’d seen it and he believed that there were _still good people_. And now she was dead and if that wasn't enough, this world was taking her from him yet again by denying any of them the time to say goodbye, allowing them only a chance to ensure she wasn't torn apart as they fled. And he wasn't sure if he was back at that edge or if he'd fallen over, but he knew now that all the good people were dead.

Then there was a hand on his shoulder again, but lighter, and he turned. It was Carol, nearly pitching into him, hardly able to stand, somehow keeping her attention solely on him despite the imminent threat. Tears were brimming in her eyes, and even as fury surged in his blood as he comprehended what his friend was doing, why she'd limped back for him, he knew it hurt Carol to leave Beth behind too. Even as he wanted to rage at Carol for forcing his hand, his shoulders slumped, and he broke. He could save them both, or he could kill them both.

Briefly, Carol rested her forehead against his, her eyes closing as several tears slid down her cheeks through the dust and blood, before she pulled back to look at him again. It was hard to know what was for him and what was for Beth, and maybe most of it was for both, because even if Carol hadn't been able to read him like an open book, she'd have seen the raw agony ripping through him just by looking into his face. 

Despite this, Daryl’s eyes never left her face, unable to look away. They were only inches apart as she rested a hand gently on his cheek--asking him to not go to her, asking him to stay with _them_ , asking him to _live_. His need to get back to Beth, to bring her with them, to give the girl who had thought the dressed-up bodies in the funeral home were beautiful her own proper sendoff and her family, and himself, a chance for a goodbye, collided head on with his need to protect the living he loved, including and maybe even foremost the woman who stood before him now, silver hair skewed and damp with perspiration, eyes shining with tears, risking her life to save his. Even as he already knew what he would choose, what he had to choose, he wavered on the edge of making that decision, struggling to accept its finality.

“We’ve got to go, Daryl,” Carol said softly and he felt her heart breaking for him, if not with him, “we’ve got to go.”

Daryl blinked back tears, but he gave Carol the smallest of nods, and saw her almost collapse in relief. Quickly, he turned them away from the horde who’d come within feet of them, an arm around her waist to support her as she leaned into him. He realized that he couldn't put a finger on when exactly it had happened, but Beth had wrapped one of her small fists around part of his heart, and as they limped forward, away, he let her take it from him, felt it tear from his chest.

_“We’ve got to go, Beth,”_ he remembered saying as the smell of ash filled his nose and the smoke stung his eyes and the loss of their home tore at his heart, _“we’ve got to go.”_

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everyone, hope you enjoyed this and also sorry for the long hiatus(es) on my other two works, life's been really busy but I swear I'm working on them, just don't have any final drafts yet!


End file.
